The English Language
I've always enjoyed the way my friends from other countries
say things. It's more than their
accents; it's the way they express themselves with the vocabulary they've
acquired. Here are three examples
from Beh (whose mother tongue is Vietnamese, but speaks English like an
American). I thought of sending
them to Reader's Digest, but will post them here instead.
When she started driving my '73 Monte Carlo, I told her to be
careful and listen when filling it, because gasoline would gush out if she
overfilled it. One of the first
times she tried filling it, she came back smelling of gasoline. I asked what happened. She replied, "I couldn't hear the
voice of the gasoline!"
The other night she was discussing what to wear to the gym she's
going to. She said, "I need
to wear stockings, because I don't want to show the roots on my legs."
This morning she was getting me ready in the bathroom and had
a teapot on the stove in the kitchen heating water for my coffee. Suddenly, she said, "Oh, I have to
go. Your coffee is yelling at
me."
Copyright 1998 © Ronald W. Hull
4/4/98